the long and winding road...

Vacation Day 3: Epcot
We did two days at Epcot last time but I still left feeling like we hadn’t really seen it. I think Epcot is one of those places that grows on you. To me it seems like it takes more effort than the other parks because you have to hunt things out and wander around rather than just stand in line and get on the ride.

The nice thing about Epcot is how spread out it is. Even though there are lots of people there it doesn’t feel as crowded, at least in the World Showcase area. But this can also be a bad thing because it means that no matter where you’re going it’s going to be a long walk. At the end of the day, my dogs were barking!

We started the day super early arriving at the gate about 7:40 for our 8:10 breakfast ressie at Akershus. G was dressed in her Belle outfit in anticipation of the princess meal. G loves to be dressed up in her “fancy” dresses and spent her time waiting to enter the park doing her version of ballet. As usual she often attracts quite a group of onlookers. She appears completely oblivious to those watching. She just twirls and whirls and waves her arms in the air swinging herself up to her tiptoes (her attempts at gracefulness). She truly does “dance like no one’s watching” and I love watching her. I know that all of a sudden, and let’s face it will probably be sooner rather than later, G is going to become more self conscious and her public dancing days will likely come to an end.

Anyway, they let us in and we were able to take some pictures of the nearly empty park on our way back to eat. Epcot is beautifully landscaped and the sky was overcast which makes for nice photos.

Just like our last visit Akershus was very nice. Some don’t care for the food but I really like it! I was slightly disappointed to again be seated in the low ceilinged room rather than the more castleish looking room in the back but , no worries :-) As is typical for these types of meals, princess interaction was very brief (“well hello princess, you look very pretty”, autograph, quick pic) but Georgie really enjoyed it. They also do a “follow your princess” with the kids parading around the room which G was thrilled to do!!! G is so princess crazy she’d probably follow one right off a cliff ;-)

After breakfast we went back to Future World (the world showcase didn’t officially open until later), grabbed a fast pass for Soarin’ then did the Nemo ride and Turtle Talk with Crush. There are some E ticket type rides up there too but they’re not Georgie friendly so we skipped them. After that we made our way back to the World Showcase. We had a 5:30 dinner ressie for Le Cellier –in Canada—so my plan was to start the showcase going to the left (I can never remember if that’s east or west) then circle all the way around to Canada –which is the second to last pavilion I believe-- by dinner. Georgie was old enough this time to do the kidcot activities and she really enjoyed them. They give each child a paper Duffy Bear on a stick that they can color any way they like. (By the way, if you don’t know who Duffy is, you’re in good company. He is a Disney character of sorts but not popular in the US). In addition, at each country’s kidcot station they have a showcase rep who will stamp the stick with the country name. I also bought her an Epcot “passport” which came with stickers of each country’s flag. So at each stop she’d color a bit of her Duffy, we’d find and affix the correct flag sticker, and have the stick stamped. Then the rep would stamp her passport , write her a little note in the passport in their native language, and tell her a fact or two about the country! It was all quite time consuming but in a good way and Georgie really felt involved in Epcot which was nice. Along the way we encountered many Disney characters, listened to some Japanese drums and took in the architecture of each country’s pavilion. Fun! BTW Morocco is awesome! It made me want to visit the real thing and check out the Kasbah :-)

As it turned out our timing was pretty good and we made it all the way around the circle and ended up at Canada right about time for dinner at Le Cellier! Le Cellier is one of my gotta try places at Epcot and I was excited about going. Dinner was pricey but awesome!! The filet mignon was super tasty. The cheese soup was a bit salty but still yummy and the creamed spinach was the bomb!! Interestingly enough G chose steak as her entrée which surprised me because we eat so little beef. It must have been good though because she gobbled up the whole thing. Alternatively she was just completely starved because we didn’t stop for lunch but, either way, it was a huge success.

With dinner complete we headed back to the front of the park to use our Soarin’ fastpass. Fastpasses had been gone for hours and the stand by time by 7pm was up to 100 mins!!! Shockingly people were still getting into line. I seriously cannot even imagine waiting that long for a Disney ride but each person is different I guess. Soarin’ is also a Disneyland ride (well Calif Adventure actually) but for some reason we’ve never gone. It is a really great ride though and G was absolutely thrilled! She was grinning from ear to ear through the whole thing. It’s so fun to see her having fun :-)

By that time it was really getting late but G wanted to do Spaceship Earth. We did it, she loved it and we were finally on our way out of the park just about 12 hours after we’d arrived. We did get a few nighttime photopass shots done in front of the Spaceship Earth ball and I’m really hoping that one of them turns out. G crashed out on the way back to the condo. No great shock as we were all exhausted!

Everybody needs a Spaceship Earth photo!

Mulan spent a lot of time with G and showed her the warrior stance. G loved it!

Its pretty much impossible for Georgie to walk past drums and not give them at least a few whacks

Georgie loves the characters and she really wanted to see the Beast. It was the longest line we waited in the whole day, about 30 mins. It was definitely worth it. G loves the Beast.